Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Danika
The feeling of relief following Saturday afternoon when I finish my last midterm is better than an orgasm.
I collapse onto the couch, keeping the glass of wine I poured safe from spillage.
Arden comes out from his bedroom and sits next to me.
Without a word, he hands me his phone open to the online platform where our grades come in.
He has it open to his statistics class. And his midterm grade.
Which is a B plus.
“Oh my god, Arden!” I throw the phone on the couch. “You did amazing!” I don’t know how or why I do it, but I end up crawling onto his lap after placing my glass of wine on the table and giving his neck a squeeze.
“You did amazing,” Arden laughs against me, my reaction clearly taking him off guard in a good way. He hugs me tightly against him. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
I lean back, keeping my arms around his neck but his arms around my waist don’t let me go far. “Oh please, I barely did anything. That was all you.”
I lean down to place a congratulatory peek on his lips but he meets my mouth hard and captures my lips in a soul-gutting kiss. His arms grip me tighter as the kiss deepens and I’m pushing myself closer to his body, removing any space between us. As if that’s close enough.
I grind against his lap and feel him growing harder beneath me. Just as I pull away to suggest we move this party to his bedroom, a pounding on the door interrupts our elation.
“Danika!” A loud voice calls from the hallway, yelling over the sound of pounding. “Open up!”
Who the fuck?
Tentatively, I peel myself off of Arden to open the door but he beats me to it, no doubt in an effort to keep himself in between me and possible danger.
He looks in the peephole and it’s deja vu as he sighs and opens the door widely.
Gemma squeals when she sees me, running straight past Arden. “I passed the molecular cell bio midterm!” She hugs me tightly and then pulls back. “Did you?”
“I haven’t checked, I just got—”
“Check, check!” Gemma pushes me toward the couch, Arden grunting behind her at the move. We both roll our eyes and ignore him. Quickly, I pull up my grade page on the university portal and wait an eternity for the page to load.
And then it does.
A.
I got an A on my molecular cell biology class.
My eyes find Arden’s first and I break into a smile that I didn’t think I could muster about school work. “I got an A.”
His smile matches mine and the pride in his eyes threatens to drown me.
“That’s it, we’re celebrating!” Gemma grabs my arm and pushes me into my bedroom. “Let’s pick out an outfit. We’re going to the party at KA.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“Nope. Hush, we’ve been working too damn hard to not party just as hard,” she says. As we walk past Arden, still standing by the door, she comments, “You too, boyfriend. Get your Sunday best on. The nerds are going out.”
Within twenty minutes, the three of us are strolling into the Kappa Alpha house, Gemma immediately flitting off like a little fairy toward the keg. Arden and I opt for the bottles in the kitchen cooler.
“Do you want to go sit in the living room?” Arden asks, his hand on the small of my back. I nod and he guides us toward an empty couch in a secluded corner. Arden sits and then pulls me down on his lap.
“Did you bring me here to seduce me?”
His chuckle is deep and reverberates throughout my entire body. “If I wanted to seduce you, we wouldn’t have left the apartment.” He kisses my cheek and then settles me deeper onto his lap.
We sip our drinks and watch the crowd. After a few minutes, Gemma runs over to us and pulls me off Arden’s lap. I could cry at the lack of contact.
“Let’s go, bitch. We’re dancing.” I want to protest. I want to stay exactly where I am. But, we did come here to celebrate and I do love this song. I allow Gemma to drag me to the dance floor and we shake our hips with abandon to the next few songs.
For a while, Arden sits in the same seat, watching us, his face inscrutable. During the last song, I look over to him, but he’s gone.
Probably went to the bathroom.
I keep dancing with Gemma, swaying back and forth, sweating profusely. I’m having an absolute blast. And then I see it.
Arden’s standing in the doorway, a little blonde whispering something in his ear. He’s looking at her and she’s looking at him and suddenly I want to puke. I stop moving altogether.
He leans down, looking at something she’s showing him on her phone and then he lets her get closer to hear whatever bullshit she’s saying. He looks at the phone then smiles at her and I feel like someone has punched me in the gut. He smiled at her.
He types something into her phone then she looks at me and widens her eyes.
Then he looks at me.
Within a millisecond, I’m out of the room, through the kitchen and into the backyard. It’s freezing out here but the fire pit is warm so I pace back and forth in front of it for a few seconds to calm down.
We’re not exclusive. We’re not anything, really. We said if one of us becomes interested in someone else, we would stop. He has every right to show interest in someone else.
Then why does this hurt so fucking much?
“Stop,” Arden’s voice is in my ear but he knows better than to touch me. “You should know better than this.”
I whip around on him. “Excuse me?”
“Have I ever ever given you any indication that I’m interested in anyone but you for the past couple months?” I start pacing again, not meeting his eye.
“We both said that—”
“Danika. Have I shown interest in anyone else?”
“You looked pretty damn interested just now.”
Arden runs his hand through the hair on his scalp. “That wasn’t what it looked like. Take that moment out of the equation. Have I so much as looked at another girl the entire time we’ve been together?” He puts the word in quotes.
I’m angry but I can’t lie. “I haven’t seen it if you have.”
“Because I haven’t. Because I don’t. Have interest in anyone else. But you.”
I stop pacing. “But you could. If you wanted.”
“No, actually. I couldn’t. And I don’t want to.” He takes a step forward. I can tell he wants to reach out and touch me but he’s not sure if he should. I’m also not sure if he should. “I want you, Danika. I’ve always wanted you.”
“You shouldn’t.” My voice is small. “You should want someone else.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This has been a lot of fun but—”
“Danika, stop.”
“We’ve always known this wasn’t actually going anywhere. Or else, it already would have…”
“You’re not making any sense. Let’s just…I don’t know. Let’s go home and talk about this.” Arden steps forward but my instinct has me stepping back.
We’ll talk about this at home.
Don’t you dare disrespect me.
You are such an ungrateful bitch.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the voice out my father out of my head. Arden is not my father. He’s not my father. And yet…in this exact moment that I’ve dreamed about since I was sixteen years old, why can’t I get my father’s voice out of my head.
Gemma takes this unfortunate moment to tumble out of the house, clearly drunk. “I want to go home,” she says, crashing into me. I catch her and Arden reaches out to help me steady her but pulls his arm back before he makes contact.
“Let’s go, drunkie.” I take Gemma’s arm and put it over my shoulder. She’s not nearly as gone as she was a few weeks ago, this time at least she can walk. “I’m going to take her to her dorm and stay with her.”
Arden’s face falls. “Let me come with you. I’ll walk you there.”
“No, we’ve got it.” I shuffle her again, putting her in a more comfortable position. “Goodnight, Arden.”
“Danika, please—”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Half carrying Gemma down the driveway, we turn left to go to the dorms instead of right to the apartment.
As much as I would rather go home and sleep in my own bed—or let’s be honest, Arden’s bed—a little separation right now will be good for us.
I need to take a minute to think about what he said and how I feel about it.
Turning around once, I look back at the house and see Arden standing at the edge of the driveway. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at his phone.